A Michigan man has been charged with a felony for allegedly lying to investigators about being shot in the neck with an arrow. He later admitted to lying and said he had fallen on it accidentally and was too embarrassed to say so. Michigan State Police

A Michigan man has been charged with a felony for allegedly lying to investigators about being shot in the neck with an arrow. He later admitted to lying and said he had fallen on it accidentally and was too embarrassed to say so. Michigan State Police

He told cops someone shot him with an arrow. Now he's the one who could go to jail

When a Michigan man turned up at the hospital in March claiming someone shot him in the throat with an arrow, police were quick to pick up an investigation.

The man, 61-year-old Michael Downey, told officials he had been walking through the woods in Van Buren County looking for antlers when suddenly he found himself with an arrow sticking out of his neck, according to WWMT.

Somehow, he was able to walk back to his vehicle and drive to a nearby home, where an ambulance was called to take him to the hospital, Fox 17 reported.

"I reached for my throat, and I was like 'Oh my god'. There was a big shaft, which was, at a glance, your average 29/30-inch arrow shaft," Downey told the station at the time, after undergoing surgery to repair his neck.

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"I just grabbed it, held it in place. I didn't know exactly where it hit. It was in my throat, didn't want to move it," he told WSBT.

Michigan State Police tried to figure out who may have shot the man. But they began sniffing out some discrepancies in his story. For one thing, the arrow wounds seemed to suggest he had been shot from below — indicating a possible suicide attempt, WWMT reported.

But Downey denied that.

"I'm not that person. I have too much to live for. I love the outdoors. The place most people call hell, I call home," he told WWMT in April.

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"The (state police) spent a considerable amount of time and utilized numerous resources such as the MSP lab and K9 during the investigation. The MSP has submitted paperwork to the court requesting restitution for the costs of these services," police wrote in a release, according to MLive.